A pro-Russian rhetoric regarding Ukraine has been discovered in a Polish textbook for students.

The head of the 'Ukrainian House' foundation, Myroslava Keryk, revealed the unsatisfactory content of the Polish geography textbook for sixth graders published in 2019. The section dedicated to Ukraine contains many inaccuracies and misinformation similar to Russian propaganda. This was reported by 'Hlavkom' citing Keryk's Facebook post.

Keryk recommends reading the section about Ukraine in the mentioned textbook with a strict warning about possible nerve damage. She has not encountered such a collection of absurd statements for a long Time, barring Russian propaganda publications. Keryk claims that the sections on the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas are practically entirely copied from Russian propaganda.

The geography textbook presents Ukraine in 2019 as a country with a destroyed agriculture and industry, empty stores and a lack of tourists even in famous resorts like Odesa and Truskavets. Furthermore, the textbook states that Ukrainians are forced to shop in supermarkets in Poland and Slovakia.

The sections on Belarus and Russia talk about natural features and tourist attractions, rather than dictatorships and the danger of living in and visiting those countries. The section on Ukraine details conflicts and poverty. Moreover, the section dedicated to tourist attractions focuses on places connected to Polish heritage. If children receive such false information about the neighboring country, they will not be able to distinguish misinformation from facts, as this textbook itself is misinformation.

Myroslava Keryk plans to address the Ministry of National Education of Poland with a petition to amend the educational material.

It is worth noting that during the analysis of over 60 Italian geography textbooks for the 7th grade published between 2010-2024, serious distortions of information about Ukraine were observed. Olena Kim, vice-president of the Association of Ukrainian Associations in Italy NAU and coordinator of the Stop Propaganda Russia initiative reported this.